Let’s talk about Sound Baths and Sound Healing! We will dive into how sound affects matter, emotions, the soul, water, Chakras and the whole body! AND I’m going to give you a little taste of what sound healing really is so read all the way to the end!
We’ve talked about different kinds of healing so far in other articles. Things like healing with color, quantum reiki, healing with the 5 elements and grounding, but we have yet to talk about one of my favorites and that is SOUND. I do know that we talked about how everything is vibration/frequency. Everything. Matter is simply condensed sound in my eyes. A greater density.
Everything vibrates at its own unique frequency. The heart, the skin, the chair, the air, all of it. This is important to understand before we go any further. EVERYTHING has a frequency.
I first want to jump into the different waves of our brain, their frequency and the state associated with it. This will help with part of the foundation for healing with sound.
BrainWaves
“Brainwaves are electrical impulses in the brain. An individual’s behavior, emotions, and thoughts are communicated between neurons within our brains. All brainwaves are produced by synchronised electrical pulses from masses of neurons communicating with each other. Our brainwaves occur at various frequencies. Some are fast and some are slow. The classic names of these EEG bands are delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. They are measured in cycles per second or hertz (Hz).”
https://www.sinhaclinic.com/what-are-brainwaves/
Delta Wave
The first is the Delta wave. This frequency is .1 – 4 Hz. These are high amplitude, low frequency brainwaves. This is normally considered the unconscious brainwave. Or something we achieve during deep sleep. Lots of healing and regeneration occurs here. You are not consciously aware during this brain state.
Theta Wave
Next is the Theta wave. This frequency is 4 – 8 Hz. The best way to describe this state is a VERY relaxed state between sleep and wakefulness. Where your subconscious mind is engaged. Basically your body is sleeping while your brain is awake. This state is common for things like hypnosis and meditation.
When I practice Yoga Nidra, my body goes into this state and it is pretty wild. I can feel my body asleep as I lay there with my eyes closed, but not asleep. It really is wild. If you’ve never tried Yoga Nidra, give it a shot.
When I facilitate sound healing for my clients, this is the state that we are aiming for. It is a state of complete relaxation, intuition and creativity.
Alpha Wave
Next is the Alpha wave. This frequency is 9 – 13 Hz. When you are in the present moment, you are in alpha state. You are in flow and in the zone. This state is very calm and alert.
Beta Wave
Next is the Beta wave. This frequency is 14 – 30 Hz. This is one of the states that most people spend their time in. And that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Now, if you are on the lower end of the beta, it is more quiet and focused. Mid range is associated with anxiety and increased energy and performance. High end beta state is high anxiety, high energy, high stress. Sadly, this is where most of us find ourselves and it is not the best place for continued presence.
Gamma Wave
Lastly, let’s briefly discuss the Gamma wave. This frequency is 30 – 100 Hz. This would be the state of running from a predator or sexual energy. Not a state that you want to be in for more than a very short time. But definitely needed at times.
Which BrainWave is Best?
Well, that all depends on what your goal is. If you are being chased, then Gamma. Sleeping? Then Delta. Self healing? Definitely Theta.
Binaural Beats
Binaural beats are crazy awesome. If you don’t know what they are, I will explain them briefly. They are great for changing from one brainwave to another.
For starters, you need headsets in order for them to work. So, you have your headsets on and you will have one frequency going into one ear and a different frequency going into the other ear. The brain has difficulty resolving the difference. So it does a really cool thing. It takes the DIFFERENCE between the two frequencies and creates that phantom frequency, flooding your body with it.
For example, if you have a frequency of 200 Hz in one ear and 205 Hz in the other ear, the resulting frequency produced is 5 Hz which is the Theta wave.
I suggest that if you want to experience binaural beats, that you do a quick search on YouTube for some video experiences. There are beats for everything. Just search “binaural beats” followed by the word for what you want to use them for. Ex, binaural beats sleep or binaural beats focus.
Sound Manipulates Matter
Let’s jump into some scientific examples of what sound actually does to matter. This is called Cymatics, which is basically the study of vibration and sound made visible. If you thought sound was just something associated with your ears and simply acknowledged and stored by the brain, then you are in for a treat!
One of the most well known experiments with matter and sound is where you take a flat metal sheet, pour sand on it and then send it a vibration, ie, make some sound! The sand will organize itself into a beautiful geometric design. I’m not talking about a circle or a square. I’m talking about an advanced pattern that is so beautiful it takes your breath away. The more higher frequency the sound, the more complex the pattern.
Now, you can do a similar experiment with water. Dr. Emoto did some cool water, sound and intention experiments. If you take water, play your sound, freeze the water, and then photograph the crystalline structure – you will see patterns and designs. What he showed was quite out of this world. And it goes way beyond sound. He showed that if you play beautiful music, the crystalline structures were well organized and, themselves, beautiful. If you play heavy metal, the crystalline structures were disorganized and “ugly”. The same was true for words AND intent. Meaning, if you spoke words of love, the crystalline structures were beautiful. If you spoke mean or evil words, they were, again, disorganized and ugly.
This goes way beyond sound, because I want you to reflect for a moment on what you think about yourself. What words do you use for self talk? What words or thoughts do you use for other people? Consider that our bodies are around 70% water, and then imagine what this does to the internal structure of your cells and the effect on your physical, mental and energetic body. Crazy to think about, but quite profound.
Sound and Emotions
Our brain loves to make emotional connections to things. Like everything! When we hear certain songs, we are quickly transported back to our first love from high school, or a painful breakup perhaps. It is an immediate emotional response to what we are hearing.
I also believe there is an aspect of pattern matching or organization similar to that of the water and sand experiment. Our brains can recognize tranquility and love and will pattern match the emotion and just drop it in.
So there is always an emotional component to what we are hearing. And now just musical sound, but people’s voices, their words, a tree falling. All sound will have an emotional response, however subtle or profound.
Sound and Entrainment
We’ve talked about entrainment before with topics such as crystals and quantum topics. Now let’s touch on entrainment with respect to sound.
We are going to pull in our knowledge of brainwaves and states here. Sound healing also works through entrainment. Everything has a base resonance frequency. This is the base frequency that something vibrates naturally.
When listening to a certain frequency, our bodies, cells, and emotions can entrain to the frequency. This means that the lesser dominant frequency will match the higher frequency. Which is a GOOD thing.
Think of binaural beats. We can use binaural beats to entrain our bodies to a theta brainwave state, for example.
Sound and Chakras
Expanding on the entrainment topic, we can take this a step further to discuss Chakras. When I do sound baths, I also work on the Chakras and it is through both the sound and intention.
Each of our Chakras has a base resonance frequency. My singing bowls are tuned to 432 Hz and then the Root Chakra is C, Sacral is D, Solar Plexus is E, Heart is F, Throat is G, Third Eye is A and the Crown is B.
As with tuning forks and colors, those Chakras will entrain to certain frequencies. So if our Heart Chakra, for example, is vibration slightly off, when infused with the frequency from the sound bowl that matches its base frequency, it will change to a more pure and balanced state and match the higher frequency. It is beautiful how this happens.
Pretty cool, right?
Sound and Healing
Now that we have a basic foundation for some principles of brainwaves, the manipulation of matter through sound, emotions, entrainment and even Charkas – we can now start piecing everything together.
Just how does sound affect and produce the effect of healing?
It affects everything, my beautiful souls. Everything. It restructures the water in our body, it brings emotions of love and healing to the surface which will flood our body and heal as it flows, it will bring us into theta state where true healing and subconscious reprogramming can occur, and it can balance out our emotional centers through entrainment.
Sound is a fundamental element of the universe. From a soul level, I like to think of light as the base of the universe. Sound is then slowed down light and physical matter is then slowed down sound. In that regard, we are light beings, sound beings, and physical beings.
What is a Sound Bath?
You might be wondering how one might use sound in healing sessions! I like to use sound bowls to create a full body experience of sound. There are different types of sound bowls. I have the frosted crystal sound bowls as well as the metal Tibetan sound bowls. Both are amazing for different reasons, which I won’t go into now.
If you want to see a quick sample of what the bowls sound like, you can check out a quick 1 minute demonstration here.
A sound bath is simply being surrounded by sound, bathed with sound if you will. A typical session for a sound bath for one of my clients differs depending on if they are in my studio or if we are doing it via zoom.
In-person Sound Bath
When I have in-person clients, I set up the room ahead of time complete with a comfortable massage table with plenty of blankets and fill the room with the healing aromatherapy scents.
I place crystals on the different Chakras and do an initial assessment.
We’ll then jump right into the sound bath at this point where I play the sound bowls. I will get energetic feedback from the client during the session as this will dictate what bowls to play. I am intuitively guided in this process so every session is different and unique for each client.
Online Sound Bath
If we are doing a session via zoom, I will suggest a client use earphones to get the full experience. I will have my remote Chakra “surrogate” board near me where I place crystals on the represented Chakras of the client.
If my client enjoys aromatherapy, we will talk about a good scent to have in their diffuser. And then we get to it! Sound, sound, sound!
How to Schedule a Sound Bath
If you are interested in booking a sound bath session, I’d love to facilitate it for you. You can schedule an appointment (in person or online) by clicking here or the button below!
Thank you for the calming bowls and your fantastic message. I loved it.